Imagine yourself on the trip of your dreams: a palm-ringed island, the beauty and history of Paris, the intoxicating allure of the Napa Valley. Now imagine that with only a pen, a camera and a little curiosity, all of these incredible travel destinations are within your reach.

Sign up today for Great Escape’s free newsletter, The Right Way to Travel, and you’ll learn how to get the most out of every trip – and how to get paid to do it.

Simply enter your name and email address in the form below and you’ll receive your first issue, along with our Five Fun Ways to Get Paid to Travel quick-start guide, absolutely free. Inside, you’ll find 5 exciting opportunities for earning extra income while exploring cities around the globe. It’s your first step to a life of fun and freedom.

Fill out the form today and you’ll be one step closer to a new part- or full-time income that can help you realize your travel dreams. And don’t worry – we will never rent, sell or give away your email address for any reason. We’ll see you out there!

Use Twitter To Grow Your Travel Blog Readership (And Profits)

Posted on October 29, 2015

If you have a travel blog but you’re not on Twitter… or you’re only tweeting about your own posts… you’re missing out on a huge opportunity to grow your audience and eventually turn them into paying customers.

Your blog is your brand, and constantly churning out content and posting it on social media is helpful. But it’s not the only thing that determines your blog’s success—or your earnings.

Here are the best ways to use Twitter to grow your travel blog readership (and profits):

Optimizing Your Twitter Feed

Take a quick look at your profile: is it filled with only your tweets? It shouldn’t be. Ideally, you should be re-tweeting other bloggers in the same niche (sharing will help build up relationships and could lead to guest posting on their sites as well).

A great profile will also feature the one thing that is vital to mastering the Twitter-sphere: interaction with followers (it is a social platform, after all). This goes beyond the simple “Thanks for following!” auto-response. In fact, that’s widely discouraged. The next-level blogger will ask his or her audience engaging questions that will prompt participation. There are two key elements to this:

Use a site like Canva to create beautiful Twitter Cards with text overlays: visual posts always perform better than simple text. Use one of your own photos for an added bonus, or if you want to find free photos to use, simply search Creative Commons or use a site like Death to the Stock Photo or Pexels.

Make sure the text is legible—this could mean placing a filter overlay, changing the font color or blurring the photo slightly.

Know your audience, and ask questions that will appeal to them. Ask them why they travel, what their favorite travel memory is, or which country is at the top of their bucket list—anything that will get them excited about travel and your brand. Try starting a hashtag to accompany your questions to create a buzz within the travel community.

The Catch

Twitter is hyper-saturated with top travel blogs that already have thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of followers. Believe it or not, that’s something that you can use to your advantage. Here’s how:

Find top influencers and learn from what they’re posting. Every time you want to re-tweet them or click one of their links, ask yourself: What makes that tweet particularly engaging? (Do they have amazing or unique photos? Is their tone fun and conversational? Are their tweets ultra-relatable?)

Follow their followers. You already know that those accounts have an interest in the same kind of content that you produce, so chances are good that they will see that notification, look at your profile, and follow you back. I’ve found that a well-targeted following spree can result in 60% to 80% reciprocation.

Unfollow your unfollowers. Check back after a day or two using a site like SocialBro to see who still hasn’t followed you back and unfollow them so that your ratio (i.e. the number of people you follow v. the number of people following you) doesn’t tip in the wrong direction. Always strive to have more followers than you are following—it will help your profile feel more authoritative and you will rank higher in search results on Twitter, which will lead to more followers. It’s a win-win.

I’ve used these techniques to more than double my following in less than one month, and it was more than worth the time I’ve invested.

[Editor’s Note: Learn more about how you can fund your travels and make an extra income with photography, travel writing, blogging, and more in our free online newsletter The Right Way to Travel. Sign up here today and we’ll send you a new report, Profit From Your Photos: A Quick-Start Guide, completely FREE.]

Imagine yourself on the trip of your dreams: a palm-ringed island, the beauty and the history of Paris, the intoxicating allure of the Napa Valley. Now imagine that with only a pen, a camera and a little curiosity, all of these incredible travel destinations are within your reach.

Sign up today for our free newsletter, The Right Way to Travel, and you’ll learn how to get the most out of every trip – and how to get paid to do it.

Simply enter your name and email address in the form below and you’ll receive your first issue, along with our Five Fun Ways to Get Paid to Travel quick-start guide, absolutely free. Inside, you’ll find 5 exciting opportunities for earning extra income while exploring cities around the globe. It’s your first step to a life of fun and freedom.

Fill out the form today and you’ll be one step closer to a new part- or full-time income that can help you realize your travel dreams. And don’t worry – we will never rent, sell or give away your email address for any reason. We’ll see you out there!